


Us Against the World

by AngelDesaray



Series: Of Love and War [6]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Drabbles, Drama & Romance, F/M, Family, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Female Friendship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Jedi Luke Skywalker, Light Angst, Male Friendship, Male-Female Friendship, Multi, One Shot Collection, Romance, Skywalker Family Feels, Tragic Romance, Unrequitted Love, one shots
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2020-01-15 20:51:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 20,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18506857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngelDesaray/pseuds/AngelDesaray
Summary: A collection of drabbles from the "Of Love and War" series filling in the smaller moments in the life of Zelina Du'ahn, including interactions with Luke and Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and more.





	1. Sickness

"It hurts," Luke whimpered.

Zelina smiled softly, taking a seat next to Luke on the bed and placing the rag and bowl of cold water she'd been holding onto the nightstand next to his bed before tucking the covers closer to him. "I know it does, Luke, but it will go away soon, I promise."

"I'm gonna die," he groaned as she soaked the rag, coaxing a chuckle from her. Such a dramatic child…just like his father…

Zelina dispelled the thoughts. Now was not the time to mourn those lost; she needed to focus on Luke's well-being. Carefully she wrung out the water, getting the rag ready as she touched his forehead tenderly once more. He was burning up with a fever, sweat beading his brow. Poor kid...

Luke groaned again, and Zelina frowned. It sounded like a warning.

"Do you think you're going to be sick again?" she asked warily.

Luke nodded, already sitting up as Zelina quickly passed him the small waste basket not a moment too soon. She tenderly rubbed the trembling child's back until he was done, prying the basket from his clutches before gently switching it out for the root drink sitting on the nightstand. It wasn't a cure-all for what he was sick with, but it would help settle his stomach. She knew from experience, as Ur-Sema had provided the same root-based drink to help settle Zelina's stomach when she had her first serious stomach related illness.

"Here…just take a sip…it will help to settle your stomach," she told Luke soothingly.

"I can't keep it down!" he objected wearily. Zelina smiled softly. That had been her initial reaction as well with her first stomach sickness.

"It will, trust me. I speak from experience."

Reluctantly, Luke obliged, hesitantly sipping on the drink before she helped him slowly lie back down. He grimaced. "I hate being sick."

Zelina chuckled softly. "I do too, Luke…just try and rest, you'll get better faster if you rest…"

"I can't sleep," he murmured as she pressed the back of her hand lightly to his forehead. He was still burning up; his fever still hadn't broken.

"Just try," she responded gently before she leaned over and wrung out the now cool wet rag. Tenderly, she began to sponge Luke's forehead, wiping the sweat from his brow with care. "Try and sleep…"

"You won't leave? You'll stay?" Luke asked her softly, cracking his eyes open to peer up at her. He looked exhausted, since he'd been awake vomiting or suffering from a migraine for hours now.

"I'll stay right here," she promised, gently brushing some of his hair out of his eyes before she returned to carefully sponging his forehead with the rag.

"Thank you, Mommy…" Luke murmured.

"Of course, Luke," Zelina replied quietly, ignoring the squirm in her stomach when he called her mother. It had been several years, and she still wasn't comfortable with the title he'd graced her with.

Silence fell, though she could sense the poor boy still couldn't find it in him to sleep. In an effort to help, she started to hum softly. She hummed the first song that game to mind, an old ballad that both she and Anakin had known when they were children. Still, it was soft with soothing tones, and it served her purposes.

The familiar tune stirred up distant memories-memories part of her wanted to bury and never touch again, while the other part wanted to cradle them out in the open and use them as a slight balm for her soul's many injuries. She was trying to be better and allow those memories to surface, especially since Luke was officially starting to ask about his father. She needed to be prepared to talk about Anakin and Padme, and the first step to that was being able to comfortably think about Anakin and Padme.

So, instead of trying to bury the memories, Zelina allowed them to float to the front of her mind. Images of little Ani and Zee having a sleepover, Shmi singing the tune in the kitchen as they whispered stories to each other about exploring the stars. She remembered on one of their walks through the Room of a Thousand Fountains, how she had watched him with a soft smile when she realized she was hearing Anakin hum the tune softly to himself in the silence, half there with her, half in his mind.

That was always their relationship, wasn't it? She'd only ever had part of him...while he had all of her.

Lost in her own memories, she almost didn't realize that Luke had fallen fast asleep. Still, she didn't stop her gentle humming and tender sponging of his forehead for several more minutes. Once she felt that she'd done enough for the night, she wrung out the rag, folding it neatly before gently placing it on the sleeping child's forehead. She let her hand drop to his shoulder for a few seconds, studying Luke's face with a bittersweet smile. He looked peaceful, and just like his father when Anakin had been young…

Zelina gently leaned down so she could place a soft peck on the child's cheek. He stirred slightly, but made no other acknowledgement of the world around him, which prompted her to carefully ease herself off the bed and into the chair on the other side of his nightstand. She got comfortable, hoping that Luke would be able to get some real, solid couple hours of sleep.

And speaking of sleep…

Zelina sighed, leaning her head back and keeping her gaze on Luke as she slowly drifted off to sleep.


	2. Casualty

After spending so much time in the company of Anakin Skywalker, Zelina's ears could pick up the rattle of some loose component on the speeder she'd borrowed from the Lars. It made her nervous, thoughts of what could happen if it was something important and it fell apart swirling in her mind, how it could end up stranding her in the desert…

An unwelcome possibility, even if she'd been taught from a young age how to survive in a desert if she was ever lost or stranded in one.

The cool but sandy air blew in her face as she guided the speeder towards the closest town that would offer her what she needed. Owen and Beru had strongly suggested that she wait until morning to head out, but Zelina refused to wait to get what she needed for her and Luke to live a good life. So she'd asked the couple to watch him for a while as she made the necessary errands so she could get herself and Luke comfortably set, or at least as much was possible on Tatooine.

She'd be damned if Luke was going to live in some sandy hovel at the bottom of the food chain, trying to scrape by. If Anakin's son ended up growing up like they'd had to…

Anakin's son…

Who she was now the sole care-provider of…

Because Anakin and Padmé…

Zelina's grip suddenly tightened enough to make her knuckles go white as she suddenly jerked the speeder to the side. She barely managed not to flip the vehicle as she suddenly swerved off course before coming to an abrupt halt. There was nothing but sand and horizon around her. Not a farmer, Jawa, or Tusken Raider was around to see her, nor hear her. It was just what she needed at the moment, though she didn't have enough time to register the fact.

There were no Jedi around to sense her, no Sith to track her down, no living soul anywhere near to witness her. Now...now was the best chance she had to finally let everything that had happened really sink in. She'd been doing what she always did when she saw something particularly traumatic-she'd compartmentalized it all, told herself she'd deal with it later as she locked it all away and tried not to think about it. But now...she didn't want to risk coming apart when she needed to take care of Luke. She needed to open the box now, while she had this chance, and let it all flow out.

If she opened that box, though...would she ever be able to close it again?

Zelina pushed out of the speeder, leaving it hovering where it was as she stumbled blindly forward into the dunes. She didn't have any particular destination, she just wanted to get far enough from the speeder she wouldn't risk damaging it.

_Let it out, let it out, let it out so it doesn't destroy you, so Luke doesn't get caught in a future shockwave if it overflows one day. Let it out now, let it...let it all sink in, even if you can't take it, let it…_

She missed a step, stumbling forward as she felt her chest constrict and the tears already starting to well in her eyes as the raw grief she'd been keeping trapped inside tried to struggle to the surface, fighting against her instinct to shove it back down, to drown the emotion before someone could see-

_No. No, think of what happened, even if you have to force yourself…_

She had to think about the Temple. No, not just of the Temple, of the Jedi Order as a whole. What happened to the Temple happened to all the Jedi around the galaxy on a mass scale.

The senseless slaughter hadn't just been at the Temple. All around the galaxy soldiers suddenly turned on their unsuspecting Jedi Generals and gunned them down in cold blood. She remembered how it felt when Tup had almost killed her at Ringo Vinda. Had the rest of the Jedi felt similarly? Had they felt more terror than she had? She'd gone numb, had they stopped feeling as well, or did they feel every terrifying last second?

Had Aayla been among the dead? She couldn't afford to hope for her survival, it was far more likely she'd been killed, anyway. Zelina had to assume everyone had been killed, other than those she knew had survived. Which meant somewhere in the galaxy her second master had died, probably alone, gunned down by her own men…

_Force...no…_

_Ahsoka._

Now the tears blurred her vision, arms wrapped tightly around herself as she felt her body begin to tremble as the waves of grief started to come fast and hard, smashing against her and quickly submerging her in the reality she'd tried desperately not to be dragged into.

Ahsoka was dead, too, wasn't she? She would have dodged this catastrophe so easily if she hadn't come back...but she'd come back to help with Maul on Mandalore, she'd been right in the middle of some of the most intense fighting, right on the front lines when it all happened. Which meant Ahsoka met the same fate as the rest of the Order.

_Unless…_

No...no, she couldn't afford to hope. As much as she wanted to, if she hoped certain people had survived, then if it was ever confirmed they had died it would break her anew. No, she had to accept them all as dead, now.

But she didn't want to. She shouldn't have to. None of this should have happened in the first place. And it wouldn't have happened if Anakin hadn't been friends with the wrong person, if he'd trusted her instincts about Palpatine.

"Damn you, Anakin," she whispered hoarsely, but as soon as the words tumbled past her lips, she revoked them in her heart.

No, she didn't mean that. She didn't want that. She wanted Anakin back, that was what she really wanted. Besides, it wasn't Anakin's fault-he'd been a victim, too. Palpatine had taken everything from Anakin. And Anakin had still tried to do the right thing in the end.

A sharp sob burst out of Zelina as she sank to her knees in the sand, tears burning her eyes. It had been her responsibility to look out for Anakin. If anyone had died that night to save someone, it should have been her life sacrificed for him, not the other way around. He shouldn't have died. His children shouldn't have been orphaned moments after being born. Padmé shouldn't have been caught in the cross-hairs.

She'd made so many promises to protect Anakin and his family, and she'd failed half of them with both Anakin's and Padmé's death.

And a part of her had died with them.

_Let it out._

She'd never really let go of her emotions entirely before, not to this magnitude, and she struggled with the task of simply letting it all out. Images flickered in her mind of the carnage at the Temple, of the lights in the galaxy flickering out one by one in rapid succession by the blade and blasters of people she'd considered friends and companions. The magnitude of the slaughter began to hit her one at a time, as if she was still there, as if she was still experiencing it anew.

And just like that, the lock clicked, and the floodgates opened.

Zelina shuddered from the force of what welled up inside of her, leaning forward as it punched mercilessly out of her. With the raw emotion came a scream like what she'd released when she'd felt Anakin die. It flew into the air before her, swallowed up by Tatooine's sheer sandy void so no one but her would ever hear the true extent of her grief. Her scream stripped her throat with its sheer volume, and she found her hands sinking into the sand below her as she leaned into them before they curled into fists buried in the ground.

She sucked in a breath, the silence deafening as she briefly paused long enough for air before she released another scream, allowing the images of the bodies strewn throughout the temple to mercilessly assault her rather than suppressing them. Her scream turned into an anguished wail as she remembered realizing it was Anakin leading the massacre, as he nearly executed her despite all they'd been through.

And finally her heartbroken wails for his death. For Padmé's death. For Luke and Leia's orphaning. For the loss of all she'd known. For the return to this Force forsaken planet because it was the best place she could think of to disappear.

She let her screaming wails dwindle to cries, to moans, to sobs, and finally to nothing. By the time she'd let it all out, she was lying in the sand, feeling completely drained and hollow, with no motivation to move anytime soon.

But no…she had to move. She had to keep moving, to start building a life for Luke. She was his provider now, and she couldn't provide if she didn't get up off of the ground and keep moving.

She still didn't move. So, to motivate herself, Zelina forced herself to shove the past into some dark corner of herself for the time being, and focused on plans for the future.

She needed to protect him, and the lightsabers would be a giveaway, so she needed blasters. She needed clothes for Luke, food, other essentials. They needed a roof over her head, so she'd have to be on the lookout for property. Most of all she needed a job to make money to support them. Perhaps she could convince Owen and Beru to let Zelina and Luke stay as she worked to get the money to buy their own place. Maybe she could do better, start her own business.

No, she wouldn't be able to start her own business right away—she'd have to work her way up to that…but maybe someday.

What would be a good business on Tatooine aside from smuggling, mercenary work, and other criminal jobs?

Zelina visibly shuddered. She knew. She'd seen just how profitable such a business could be when she was a child.

A cantina. She needed to find a job at a cantina, and maybe, with a little luck and savings, and smart investments…she could eventually find herself the owner of one. That would provide a steady income that would give Luke a stable life, even if it dredged up terrible memories of her past.

And if she needed to, she'd invest in a second job, or maybe even some freelance work. There were things she could do on Tatooine that would put her other skills to good use.

So that was her goal. That was what she needed to do. And now that she had a direction on top of a purpose…

Zelina carefully pushed herself up on trembling arms, brushing off the sand on her arms before wiping away the tears. She shook the sand out of her clothes and hair, and slowly dragged herself back to the speeder, chanting her goals in her head as a mantra to keep her going and help her shove the trauma back to the back of her mind.

She'd let it out and sort of dealt with it. Now hopefully it wouldn't overflow at some point in the future when Luke was around.


	3. Chaos Is a Ladder

A haze seemed to be settled over the room, blanketing the cantina as much as the cacophony of conversation humming all at once. There wasn't much room to move around without bumping into anyone during the rush hour, but her agility and some experience weaving through these crowds helped her navigate the space. If no one interfered, she could easily and quickly make it to each table to deliver drinks and the occasional plate of food—though really if you were in a cantina, you were there to drink or find a shady job.

Zelina held the platter of drinks high above her head, sidestepping the Dug jumping around in anger as he lost another round of Sabacc and curving her body away from the waving hand of a disgruntled Trandoshan. After successfully making it to the crowded table in the corner that her platter of drinks was meant for, Zelina set each drink down in front of the customer it belonged to. She was quick to turn back around since there were plenty of other drinks she had to disperse through the cantina, already mapping out her best route in her mind as she took a step in the right direction.

A rough hand finding itself where it should _not_ have been had Zelina quickly whipping around to catch the offender, who had the audacity to grab at her shirt as she turned. The fabric ripped in the back, and Zelina stepped closer on instinct to keep it from shredding into nothing.

"C'mon, sweetie, stay a while, keep us company!" the Corellian man offered, trying to pull her closer.

Now that she was reoriented and knew who had grabbed her, Zelina grabbed his wrist and twisted, pulling a vibroblade with the other hand and pressing it under his chin. The man froze, trying to look down at the blade just barely being restrained from cutting into him.

"You ever try to touch me again, I'll cut off your hand and shove it down your throat. Got it?" she growled.

The man nodded and she shoved him back, putting the vibroblade back where it had been hidden by her waist. Her shirt was ripped open in the back, and as she quickly retreated from the table, she felt the damage, trying to see if it was salvageable. She could feel eyes on her, especially on the old whipping scars, and found herself struggling to clamp down on the emotions that tried to well to the front of her mind.

Great. As if she didn't struggle enough with the creeps at the cantina without it being known she used to be a slave. Now it was going to spread like wildfire, and the harassment would probably increase tenfold. It would help if the owner, Reggin, had some semblance of control over this place, but he didn't. There could be a murder, an assault, or even an exchange for a slave right in front of him and the man wouldn't do anything—she'd even seen some of those happen in the cantina. It was more lawless in the cantina than it was in the streets at night.

Force forbid she ever need to have Luke with her at work. So far she'd been lucky, and the Lars' had always been able to take care of him while she worked. They might have gone out of their way to make sure they could because of where she worked, though. One day she wouldn't be so fortunate, and she'd have to keep him on her, though.

That was not a day she was looking forward to. Something had to be done if she was going to have to tote Luke around with her while she worked. Right now, the thought made her sick.

"Zel! What the hell are you doing? Hurry up and get these drinks out!" Reggin called from the counter when he spotted Zelina headed in the other direction. She worked hard to keep a scowl from crossing her face.

"One moment, sir, I just have to make sure I stay clothed."

"Why bother? You might make more tips topless," Reggin suggested with a smirk.

Zelina had to swallow the bile that bubbled up at the comment, saying nothing as she continued towards the refresher in the back of the cantina.

_Slobbering Gundark_ _…_

Once inside, Zelina wasted no time in pulling off the shirt, examining the tear. After looking at it for a few moments, she ripped the fabric further, using the filthy mirror as a guide as she carefully manipulated and tied the strips into a homemade wrapped crop top. On the upside, it would be a little cooler to wear and she wouldn't get so hot. On the downside, it exposed more, but it was the best she could do for now. She'd just have to suffer through it today.

"Bunch of panting beasts, aren't they?"

Zelina looked up in surprise to see a Trianii woman standing by the door sizing her up, arms crossed, a utility belt slung across her waist, ears twitching subtly as the feline woman watched her. Her eyes were a startling crystalline clear, so much so Zelina couldn't initially tell she had heterochromia, since the green eye was so close to the blue in hue. Her fur was dominantly black with the occasional streak of chocolate brown. There was a nasty looking blade strategically shown on her belt, and a battle-worn blaster within close reach of her hand, likely to ward of similar trouble to what Zelina had just encountered.

Zelina looked back into the mirror, fixing her shirt. "I wouldn't have expected to see a Trianii on Tatooine, given the heat."

"What can I say, you go where there's a job. It's the only reason I can think of a woman like you working in a place like this," the Trianii replied. Zelina turned her attention back to the woman, suspicious of what she meant by the latter statement. "You've been places if you can pull a knife on a man that fast with that much precision. What are you doing working in a slum like this instead of bounty hunting or some kind of mercenary work?"

Zelina relaxed a hair when the term Jedi wasn't thrown in the mix, turning back to her reflection to make sure everything was covered. "Doing the best with what I've got. Can't afford to leave the planet a lot, so here I am."

Zelina headed towards the door, pausing to look back at the Trianii woman. "Besides, there's real potential here if you're willing to wait for it."

* * *

_*Two Years Later*_

"Get down!"

Zelina barely had time to duck her head at Ameenah's call before the blaster shots went off, piercing through the cantina's interior. She instinctively reached for a lightsaber that wasn't there, too far from the main fight to do anything about it. Instead, she kept low, looking about as the other patrons sought cover. She saw Reggin barely make it below the counter before several stray bolts flew through the general area he'd been standing.

The firefight was quick, over almost as quickly as it started, though with plenty of blaster fire to make up for the shortness of the fight's duration. When Zelina heard no more blaster fire for several long beats, she dared to raise her head above the table she'd taken refuge behind.

There were a few bodies in the area, casualties of the sudden fight, and she couldn't pin down who was responsible because they seemed to have already ducked out.

Once it was clear that the fight was over, everyone inside the cantina gradually returned to normal, some even stepping over the bodies as they went about their daily business.

Ameenah passed by Zelina, the Trianii woman setting about taking care of the bodies before Reggin could say anything.

Apparently what Zelina had said in the bathroom that one day made her curious, because the Trianii woman had been around the cantina far more often ever since. Reggin wasn't complaining, because Ameenah lent a hand here and there—when she felt like it. Ameenah wasn't a big fan of Reggin either.

Thank the Force this hadn't been one of the days she'd needed to bring Luke to work…

Within minutes, the previous buzz of the cantina was back to what it had been before, Ameenah had gotten rid of the bodies, and Reggin was right back to serving the counter and barking at her to get the drinks out.

It made her sick.

"Zel, what are you doing standing around, get back to work! I'll start floggin' you if I need to."

Zelina visibly bristled at the statement. "I'm your employee, Reggin, not your slave. Besides, I'd be more worried about contingency plans with how dangerous this place can be."

Reggin paused with a half-closed bottle of cheap whiskey in hand. "What are babbling on about?"

Taking her platter over to the counter so he could fill it with the next order, Zelina looked at him with a cool expression. "I'm saying with how rough things get around here, you might want to think about making plans for the cantina if anything ever happens to you."

"Is that a threat?"

"No, it's common sense—I saw several of those blasts go right through where you were standing, you barely ducked in time. Anyone with a brain would have a plan for the worst."

"Nothing is gonna happen to me. Just worry about doing your job. Schutta."

"E chu ta," Zelina mumbled under her breath.

"What was that?" Reggin asked sharply.

Zelina looked up, locking eyes with Reggin. "I think you should think about who you should give ownership of the cantina to if something ever happens to you."

Reggin paused, meeting her gaze. Before he could speak, Zelina interrupted him. "But take your time thinking about it, too. This isn't a decision that should be rushed. Though you should tell me when you decide—I'm curious who you'll pick."

While Reggin sat blankly at the counter for a few moments, Zelina gathered the drinks for the next order and arranged them on the platter. She walked away as he slowly started to go back to what he'd been doing, but with a slightly more absentminded air. Ameenah, who'd just returned, was watching Zelina curiously, but Zelina gave her no reaction, and simply went back to doing her job.

* * *

_*Four Months Later*_

Closing time. Zelina's favorite part of working at the Cantina, because it meant she finally got to escape this slum. All the grabby sleemos of customers were gone, and all she had to deal with was Reggin's repeatedly unsuccessful…advances. Once close was done, she'd be able to get back to the Lars home with Luke.

Soon she'd have enough credits they'd have their own place. She already had the home picked out, she just needed to take care of the financial side now.

She still had to deal with her job, but that couldn't be helped right now. All she could do was keep her patience sustained on that end.

Speaking of Reggin and her terrible job…

Reggin approached as Zelina turned stools up onto freshly wiped down tables, datapad in hand. As soon as she saw him coming, she straightened and turned to face him, tense and on edge.

"Reggin," she said stiffly.

"Listen, Zel…I've been thinking about what you said about how I should probably plan for the worst with how rough this place can be, and…well, I got all the paperwork done. I just need a signature."

Zelina appraised him quickly, trying not to think of what equally undesirable character Reggin was thinking of handing the cantina over to if something ever happened to him. "Who'd you choose?"

"I was going to have an old gambling buddy of mine take over—"

"But you decided I'd be better suited for the job," Zelina interjected before he could finish, locking gazes with him once more.

Reggin stood still for a moment, as if processing what she was saying. "I decided you'd be better suited for the job."

Zelina gave Reggin a false smile, taking the datapad from him. "I guess I'll be signing this, then." Once she'd signed everywhere she needed to, she handed the datapad back to Reggin. "Go ahead and send it, and don't worry about it now that it's done."

While Reggin turned his attention to the datapad, Zelina let him be, continuing to close up shop with the goal of getting out of this hellhole as soon as possible.

At least things were starting to look up.

* * *

_*One Year Later*_

Ameenah wasn't there, so when the fight broke out, Zelina had no visible warning. She did feel the zap of warning from the Force go down her spine, which prompted her to jump behind a pillar right before the blaster fire erupted around them. Once more, the fight was quick, over as quickly as it started. Zelina held her position until the firing stopped, then carefully poked her head out from around the pillar to assess the damage.

There was more destroyed cups and liquor bottles behind the counter, fresh scorch marks on the wall, a few bodies…

Reggin hadn't raised his head from behind the counter.

As the patron's started to mull about, Zelina went over to the counter to see if Reggin was simply hiding longer than usual to be safe.

When she leaned over the edge of the counter, it was to see Reggin laying haphazardly on the ground, unmoving, with a charred hole in his chest showing her what had happened when she wasn't looking.

Zelina held still for a few moments, processing what had happened, what that entailed, and what she needed to do now.

Once she'd figured all of that out, Zelina grabbed the blaster Reggin kept behind the counter, climbed up on top of the bar, and hid the blaster, clearing her throat and shouting over the noise of the cantina to make sure everyone could hear.

"All right, we're closed! Everyone that's received their drinks and paid, out. Everyone that still needs to pay or get their drinks, come see me and I'll get you settled."

"A slave broad like you ain't gonna make _me_ leave! I'll leave when I want to," one of the more drunken patrons spat, waving his blaster at her.

Zelina pulled out her blaster and fired before the drunk even had the chance to react with so much as a scream. Zelina allowed all the other armed patrons a moment to see he wasn't going to be getting back up before she spoke again.

"Anyone else?" she challenged, attuning her senses specifically to pick up any possible threats.

There was a grumble of protest, but no one tried waving a blaster in her face or threatening her in any way. Most of the people who had been crowded into the cantina left, and while Zelina suspected some of those who left did so without paying. She was too busy trying to take control of the situation to care—today.

Reggin was dead, and she was now in charge of the cantina. She needed to lock down the cantina, take care of the bodies, get her newfound ownership well-established and cemented.

And she needed to do a serious overhaul of the state of the cantina now that she was going to be running things.

It took longer than she would have liked, but she eventually got everyone out of the cantina and locked the doors, leaving her with…

A handful of bodies that included a dead boss and newfound cantina ownership.

She needed to get to work.

* * *

_*One Week Later*_

"I'm sorry, I'd just…like some clarification. What part of all this has you so confused? Cause Reggin is dead, He turned in all the paperwork with my signature over a year ago…"

Tatooine authorities—if they could even be considered that, considering just how lawless Tatooine really was—sat across from Zelina at a table inside the still closed cantina. She was almost done getting the cantina cleaned up to the point she wanted it, with a few boxes of alcohol shipments sitting on the bar counter. She was doing her best to muffle the annoyance that was stirring inside her, but her attitude kept rising as a testament to the fact she did not appreciate the interrogation.

"We just find the circumstances surrounding your boss's death and your acquirement of the cantina to be…suspicious. As do others," said the one on the left, a stout man with long, lifeless black hair.

"What about all of this is suspicious?" Zelina asked incredulously.

"Well, we've heard Reggin publicly was not a fan of yours, which already makes his wish that you take over the cantina strange. Though the rather sudden thought he had to will someone the ownership of the cantina when he hadn't for years beforehand, as well as the fact he dies not long after this thought suddenly occurred to him…that's rather suspicious too."

Zelina rolled her eyes and sat back, folding her arms across her chest. "He almost got shot in a bar brawl a couple years or so back. I suggested he might want to think of the what if in case one of these days those blaster bolts didn't miss. It's common sense to have a backup plan when you own a cantina in these parts."

"And the fact that an ex slave girl who comes from nothing was the beneficiary is just a happy coincidence?" the other cut in, a bulky, muddy brown haired man.

Zelina didn't bother to hide her expression twitching towards a distasteful snarl at the clear discrimination, but she schooled her expression once more in a relatively quick space of time. Long enough for them to see it, but quick enough she could at least be given credit for appearing to try to control that reaction.

"What can I say, I was actually his favorite. He came onto me quite a few times after hours hoping to get something from me. Guess there was an upside to that unpleasantness after all," Zelina muttered.

"Doesn't make much sense to make someone you wish was your personal dancer next in line for ownership of your establishment," Bulky said. She was really starting to dislike this guy.

"Listen, I don't know what was going through Reggin's head. I just know he made me owner, I'm owner, and now I'm doing my best to keep the cantina going. I'm not going to complain, other than I wish I knew a bit more about running a business before I got put in charge," Zelina said with a shrug. "Does it really matter who's running the joint as long as people are still getting their drinks?"

"If foul play is involved—"

"Foul play is almost always involved—its Tatooine. In this case, you're looking in the wrong place. Reggin didn't have any kind of rules in this place, a brawl broke out with blasters almost weekly. It was bound to happen at some point. If you're looking to blame anyone for foul play, find the person who shot him."

"Did you hire someone to kill your boss so you could take over the cantina?"

"There it is," Zelina murmured, shaking her head. "No, I did not. I've been a waitress at a cantina on this dustball of a planet to try and sustain two people, do you really think I've got the money to hire a mercenary? Besides, if I was going to kill him to take over the cantina, I would have done it a lot sooner than now—I could have used the better income months ago when my boy was sick."

The two shared a glance, one nodding while the other shrugged. Lifeless spoke after a few moments of their silent communication.

"We'll be conducting our investigation to see if there's any truth to these claims—"

"All right," Zelina said, standing up sharply. "Just because I was a slave when I was very young does not mean that I had to cook up some convoluted plan to get this far, and you can grasp at straws all you want, but you're not going to put me in jail for being a successful former slave, okay? Go do your investigation, I'll be running my business."

Once her short speech was finished, Zelina shoved her chair back into its place and left the two investigators alone, turning back to what she had been doing before they showed up. As she pulled the alcohol from the boxes and put them on her desired places on the new shelves behind the cantina bar, she let her mind wander just briefly, keeping her expression controlled so it didn't reflect her thoughts.

It wouldn't be long now before she could finally afford that real home for her and Luke, now.

She was going to implement some hard rules to make this place not so dangerous, less of a sleazy danger towards herself and other women, but still prosperous.

She was going to have to make sure to kick an advance in a wire transfer. They'd be smart enough to know it was for services well rendered and a reminder to stay quiet.

Maybe if she offered Ameenah a well-paying job as a bouncer of sorts for the cantina and kept it relatively cool, the Trianii woman would be willing to stick around and help out.

Now she'd just have to remind herself the kind of person Reggin had been, the state of the cantina while it was under Reggin and how dangerous it had been, and her usual mantra of whatever it takes to take care of Luke.


	4. Scoundrels and Ruffians

For all the stories he had heard about his place, he was actually surprised by how tame it seemed.  He’d heard all about how this was a cantina more lawless than most parts of Tatooine, which was saying something.  There had been stories of frequent bar brawls that tended to involve blasters, a disturbingly high body count, any kind of scum you could think of—even the kind other scum didn’t want to deal with.  He’d figured if he was going to find someone connected to Jabba the Hutt, this was the place to be.  
Yet now that he was here, he didn’t find the thriving cesspool he’d heard tales of.  Apparently, ownership of this cantina had passed hands to someone else, and after closing the cantina for a short period of time, it opened up with some remodeling and a new set of rules that were enforced with enough assertion the place straightened out impressively, without scaring away all of the business.  He was still hearing the kinds of rumors and job deals that he’d expected to hear, but there wasn’t blaster fire raining down on patrons at random or brawls to the death leaving bodies on the floor for people to step around.  There was a corner for the bounty hunters and mercenaries to find job postings, and plenty of quiet corners for shadier, illegal jobs to be discussed without threat of being overheard.  He’d already worked out that the Trianii woman who’d positioned herself so she could see the whole cantina worked for the cantina, and it would have put him on edge a bit more if he wasn’t accompanied by a giant Wookiee.  Especially since the rumor was that while the cantina had been straightened out considerably by the new owner, the place had fallen into her hands by means that sounded like there had been some shady things happening behind closed doors.  
He was a little disappointed it hadn’t turned out to be like all the rumors off-world said, which was part of the reason he’d come since it had spiked his curiosity, but considering it was probably better for business if the customers weren’t constantly at risk of getting killed by crossfire, he wasn’t about to complain.  Besides, it still seemed to be thriving with opportunity without the high risk of death.  
“So you’re the fools who’re looking to meet Jabba.”  
Han Solo looked up at the feminine voice that addressed him and Chewbacca, surprised to see that the blond woman he’d noticed serving drinks throughout the cantina earlier was actually addressing him.  Not only that, but she was setting a glass of whiskey in front of him, and filling it with what looked to be Corellian Whiskey.  
“Well, it doesn’t take long for word to travel around here, does it?” Han asked, eying the drink she was pouring him.  He hadn’t bought a drink—not yet, anyway—and was trying to figure out what her angle was.  
“No, it really doesn’t—first thing you need to learn about Tatooine,” she said, setting down the bottle and remaining standing by their table.  Chewbacca seemed to be studying her rather intently, but since the Wookiee wasn’t saying anything about why, Han was leaving it alone for the time being.  
“And the second thing?” Han asked.  
“Be very careful getting tangled up with Jabba.  Most people would avoid dealing with him directly.  It can be profitable, yes, but Jabba isn’t exactly known for being an honorable and trustworthy business man.  In fact, he’s pretty well known for screwing over his business partners.”  
If he didn’t know any better, he’d say it sounded like she was speaking from personal experience.  However, there was something else he wanted to comment on before he drudged up a minor point like that.  
“And why exactly would you be giving me this generous advice about Jabba?  I don’t even know you.”  
“Mm…perhaps because I have a job proposal for you.  Some work that’s a bit more honest and easy that might help pay for any debt Jabba might try to tie you up in.”  
This was starting to look far too good of a deal to be true.  “Why us?”  
“Because while you’ve been asking around about Jabba, I’ve been asking around about you.”  At the look Han gave her at that announcement, the woman simply shrugged.  “I keep tabs on who comes into my cantina so I know which troublemakers I need to pay extra attention to.”  
“You’re Zel Ahn?” Han asked in disbelief.  
“That’s me.  Now considering that’s not that hard to believe, let’s point this conversation back in the right direction.  Are you interested in having the guaranteed job when you need it or no?”  
Han looked across the table where Chewbacca was sitting, wanting to know if the Wookiee wanted to hear what she had to say as well, or if he thought they should just stick with getting the job from Jabba.  Chewbacca chuffed under his breath and nodded, which Han took as his cue.  
“Depends on what the job is.”  
Zel’s lips quirked towards a smirk.  “How are you with bootlegging?”  
Honestly, he’d been expecting something a little more illegal considering he was on Tatooine.  “You want us to bring you alcohol shipments?  Don’t you already have someone to do that for you?”  
Zel shrugged.  “There’s some brands that are harder to get your hands on and some that aren’t exactly considered legal by the Empire I might need smuggled here.  And the last guy I hired met an…unfortunate end.  Not on my part, one of his other jobs got him,” she added as an almost side note.  
“Yet us working for Jabba isn’t going to be a problem?”  
“I’m not going to hold it against you for having business with Jabba—we all do what we have to in order to survive, right?  So long as you don’t get tangled in shipping people, I couldn’t care less.  In fact, if you come to me saying you need some extra work to help pay off Jabba, I’ll see what I can scrounge up.”  
She was basically offering them a safety net for the high risk jobs they were looking to get involved in.  Once more, the thought occurred to him that this might be too good to be true.  
“Okay…what are you thinking for pay?”  
“That will depend on how much you bring, whether its high end or not…but bring me the shipments and I’ll pay you well for it.  I’ll throw in a discount when you buy stuff here, too.  You might even get some drinks on the house.”  
That actually sounded like a good deal.  And considering how much business the cantina pulled in, she could probably afford to pay them pretty well for simple alcohol shipments.  Han turned to look at Chewbacca,   
“What do you think, Chewie?  Sound like something you’d be willing to do on the side?”  
Chewbacca gave a mild roar in agreement, and Han looked back at the blond cantina owner.  “Sounds like you have yourself a deal.”  
Zel smiled, pushing the drink she’d poured his way.  “Great.  Consider that a round on the house to celebrate a new partnership.”  
Now Han accepted the drink, giving Zel his signature smirk.  “Much appreciated.”  
She started to leave, then seemed to think better of it, turning around to address Han and Chewie one more time.  
“Also…I’ll give you a list of things that, if you happen to come across in your travels, I’ll pay you some lovely extra credits for.”  
“Extra incentive.  I’m still waiting to hear the catch, honestly, cause this is a pretty good deal,” Han remarked.  
“The catch is you’re planning on working for Jabba, too.  Consider your partnership with me the good part—and good luck.”  
Before Han could reply, Zel had already turned away and was making her way back towards the main bar, taking a few orders on her way back.  Moments later, Chewbacca rose from his seat and started shuffling his way out to the rest of the Cantina.  
“Hey, where do you think you’re going?”  
Chewbacca growled something along the lines of ‘none of your business’ and kept walking, leaving Han to sulk in the corner before he delved back into the throngs of patrons

* * *

“So you did recognize me.”  
Zelina turned to look at the Wookiee that towered over her.  
Chewbacca chuffed at her, and in that moment, she wished she understood Shyriiwook.  Maybe it was something she’d have to pick up so her and Chewbacca could have these private conversations.  
“I don’t know Shyriiwook, but I can sort of guess the kinds of questions you’d have,” Zelina said with a sad smile.  Chewbacca waited patiently for her to continue, remaining silent now that she’d established she didn’t understand him.  “I made it out, obviously, so did some others, though for their sake I won’t say who.  Anakin didn’t make it…and I don’t know about Ahsoka.  I assume she didn’t…I don’t want to get my hopes up if she didn’t.”  
Chewbacca gave a sort of whine, clearly a sad and mournful sound.  
“I’m just biding my time for now.  Waiting for the right time to get back into the fray.  It won’t be any time soon, though-I’m going to wait at least several years.”  
Chewbacca tilted his head and gave a higher pitched growl.  
“I have my reasons to stay—you’ll see soon enough.”  Zelina reached out and gently patted Chewbacca’s arm.  “It’s good to see a familiar face.  Take care, Chewbacca.  We’ll be seeing a lot more of each other, it seems.”  
He gave a soft roar that still managed to rise above the noise of the cantina immediately around them.  Zelina gave him a small smile and a nod, then slid away to get back to doing her job.  
She had hired help also working the cantina, of course.  She had enough that if she wanted or needed to take a day off for Luke’s sake, she could.  When she worked, though, there was Ameenah keeping an eye on the cantina and looking out for any trouble, Zelina working the floor, Benon was the bartender, and Eny worked the floor just like Zelina.  For some reason the owners usually were behind the counter, but Zelina preferred to be able to move about and see what was going on.  She didn’t like the thought of being trapped behind the counter.  
While she was also proud that the cantina was a lot calmer than it had been when Reggin was in charge of the place, that didn’t mean the cantina was devoid of issues.  It was a cantina.  On Tatooine.  She was bound to have issues no matter what she did.  What mattered was how well she handled the outbursts of violence when they came.  
Which tended to be promptly and with an iron fist.  
Zelina continued to weave between tables and the bar, collecting drinks and dishing them out to customers as she went.  She didn’t have issues with groping anymore, unless there was a new patron that didn’t know the rules of the cantina.  At this rate, she should probably put up a sign, but there was something about the rules being unspoken and for the most part understood that she sort of liked.  
Across the room, Ameenah caught Zelina’s attention, the woman’s tail flicking subtly in the direction she wanted Zelina to look.  Casting her gaze where Ameenah was directing her, Zelina looked just in time to see a man carefully scrutinizing a miserable looking twi’lek woman everywhere he could—even checking teeth and other physical appearances.  Ameenah caught Zelina’s gaze again and inclined her head to ask if Zelina wanted Ameenah to handle it, but Zelina shook her head, expression darkening as she tucked the drink platter she’d been carrying around under her arm as she approached the offending table.  
There was three men and the woman.  One was clearly the buyer, the other two possibly the sellers considering the twi’lek was wedged between them.  They were all armed, and there were drinks in front of them—Zelina hadn’t served them, she would have instantly picked up on what was happening, and this was Eny’s side of the cantina.  So they were possibly drunken, armed slavers.  
This was definitely going to escalate into a fight.  
“Gentlemen, I’m aware that Tatooine still has slavery, but I do not allow the buying, selling or even appraisal of people in my cantina,” Zelina said once she’d arrived, folding her arms over her chest as she stood in front of their table.  The woman was now cowering, ducking her head low and trying to disappear beneath the table as the three men turned their challenging gazes onto Zelina, the the buyer—who she was currently looking at—giving her a superior smirk.  
“There’s nothing like that going on here, ma’am.  Just some friends sitting down for drinks and a man admiring a woman’s beauty.”  
Zelina felt her nose wrinkle in distaste, her expression remaining hard as she stared them down.  “I’m going to have to ask you all to leave, now.  And to pay for your drinks, if you haven’t already.”  
One of the sellers rose from his seat with a sneer.  “You don’t have the right—”  
“This is my establishment, and I have the right to refuse service to whomever I please, and considering I have strong reasons to believe you’re trying to make a slavery deal under my roof, I’m kicking you out.  I’ll show you the door myself if I have to,” Zelina snapped at him, her tone holding the last hints of a warning.  
“I’d do what the lady says,” came the voice of Han Solo behind her.  Zelina spared him a fleeting glance over her shoulder before fixing her full attention back on the slavers in front of her.  
“You don’t need to get involved, Solo.  What kind of owner would I be if I couldn’t take out the trash now and then?” she said coolly.  
The buyer stood slowly, as did the other seller.  “We’ll take our business to a better suited establishment.  This place has really gone downhill since the ownership changed hands.”  
Zelina didn’t rise to the bait.  Instead, she watched the man with a sharp eye as he gathered his things, mockingly tossed the credits on the floor in front of her, and turned to leave.  As the two sellers tried to usher the twi’lek along with her, Zelina suddenly reached out and grabbed her arm, able to pull her out of their grip because of the unexpected move.  
“Ah, she stays.”  
“What the hell do you think you’re—” one of the sellers started to say angrily, already moving towards her.  Zelina held out the drink tray and stopped him with the edge, gaze hard.  
“See, this rule of mine, about no slavery—If I catch anyone trying to conduct that kind of business in here, I take the, ah, contraband.  In other words, you lose your slave, she’s mine now, and…well, I’m pretty sure you know what comes next.”  
Solo shifted off to her side, clearly sensing the oncoming fight Zelina had already been aware was coming.  Ameenah was moving out of her corner as well, and while there was still some conversation buzzing, it was a low hum, which meant the entire cantina was paying attention.  
“Some kriffing schutta like you isn’t gonna take our property from us.  She belongs to us.  Hand her over.  Now,” the other owner said.  Zelina didn’t even blink.  
“You know your way out.  I suggest you leave while you still have your lives,” Zelina said coldly.  Now the cantina was completely silent, everyone holding their breath to see what the slavers were going to do.  Zelina already knew.  In fact, she was already reaching for her vibroblade when the three suddenly burst into a flurry of motion.  
A blaster shot exploded into the scene, taking down one of the slavers the same time Zelina pulled her blade on the slaver she’d been holding at the end of her tray.  Behind her, the twi’lek screamed as Zelina embedded the vibroblade up into the man’s head from under the chin, using him as a shield when the last remaining slaver took a shot at her.  She purposely got in Solo’s way so he couldn’t kill another, determined to settle this on her own since it was her cantina and she was perfectly capable of doing so.  She pulled the blaster off of the dead slaver she was using as a shield and fired, sensing the last slaver’s life force flicker away in the Force as she shoved her temporary shield to the ground, keeping the vibroblade in hand.  
Zelina turned to Solo, wiping the vibrobade clean of blood on the tunic of one of the dead slavers unceremoniously.  “I appreciate the hand…but I did have that handled.  You didn’t need to step in.”  
“I can see that,” Solo said, shoving his blaster back into the holster at his thigh.  
“Really, don’t get involved next time—you might be shooting at Jabba’s men next time if you aren’t careful,” she told him pointedly.  She didn’t give Solo a chance to speak yet again, turning instead to Ameenah.  
“You know what to do with these, I’ll take care of our new friend.  Take them out back, and have Eny clean this up real quick—Luke’s going to be coming in from school soon, he doesn’t need to see this.”  
“Of course,” Ameenah said with a grunt, already leaning down to pick up the bodies.  Zelina was already turning towards the shaken up twi’lek, already mentally preparing her ‘you’re free now, here’s some money, go start a new life’ speech.  
She was worried they wouldn’t be able to clean up the mess before Luke arrived, until she glanced back to see Chewbacca helping Ameenah carry the bodies out the back while Eny swooped in to clean up any blood or scorching so suddenly she startled Solo.  
Another day without Luke being exposed to her workplace violence, then.  Good.  He was nearing his teens and already chomping at the bit with the need for adventure, but she didn’t want him seeing this kind of violence until he was older.


	5. Rebirth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave comments on the chapters, please, guys, comments/reactions are food for writers, it really helps feed the finicky motivation part of the writing process!

It was well after her shift at work when the buzz from the home communications system sounded through the house, interrupting their dinner as both Zelina and Luke looked up at the sound.  Zelina glanced at Luke, putting down her fork as she rose from her seat.

“Finish your dinner,” she murmured, leaving the room after making sure he was going to stay in his seat.

Wondering who could be calling her, and sincerely hoping there wasn’t trouble at the cantina that she would have to leave to take care of, Zelina made her way towards their living room, watching the blinking light that indicated the incoming transmission with curiosity until she was able to answer.

Of all the people in the galaxy to appear in holographic form, she hadn’t been expecting this one.

“Obi-Wan?” she hissed softly, glancing back towards the main room and sincerely hoping that Luke wasn’t sneaking around trying to eavesdrop and was still eating his dinner.  “What happened, I haven’t heard from you in far too long--I thought something had happened to you!”

“We were found, that’s why we haven’t been in touch--we didn’t want to give you and Luke away,” Obi-Wan said with a grimace, and Zelina felt a chill race down her spine.  If they’d been found, then that meant that even contacting Zelina was a risk. Before she could protest the transmission, Obi-Wan rushed to finish, clearly seeing her alarm.  “The Rebellion managed to find us a secure transmission, but it will only work for so long, so I have to be quick about this.”

Zelina nodded her understanding, keeping her mouth shut so Obi-Wan could tell her about whatever it was that had prompted the call.

“We found a small source of kyber crystals--a very small source, enough so the Empire hasn’t noticed it yet.  I know your other lightsaber was destroyed, so I thought you might want to know so if you’re so inclined, you can get one before the Empire has the chance to notice the source.  It’s on Christophsis.”

Obi-Wan rattled off the coordinates, which Zelina started to repeat in a mantra in her mind to make sure she remembered.

“I’m afraid it’s too risky to keep contact after this, Zelina.  You’re on your own, now. Pria wanted me to pass on the message that she’s going to miss Luke,” Obi-Wan said softly.

“I’m sure the feeling will be mutual,” Zelina said quietly.  “Take care of yourself, Obi-Wan. None of you better get yourselves killed before we can join the fray, all right?”

Obi-Wan snorted softly.  “That’s one way to say goodbye.  Until then, Zelina. May the Force be with you.”

“And may the Force be with you, too,” Zelina replied, Obi-Wan’s holographic form disappearing far too soon after she’d finished saying her goodbye.

* * *

Zelina crouched down in front of Luke, hands resting gently on his shoulders as they said their momentary goodbyes in the landing bay that currently housed the  _ Millenium Falcon _ .  After a day or two of consideration, and the obvious opportunity the Force presented her with when Han Solo and Chewbacca returned to the planet not long after Obi-Wan’s transmission, Zelina decided that she needed to take advantage of Obi-Wan’s information and head to Christophsis.  She’d been collecting pieces for lightsabers for a while now, even though she didn’t have crystals to make a real lightsaber, but now she knew why she’d acted on the whims. Or rather, why she’d acted on the prompts from the Force.

“Do you have to go?  Why can’t I come with you--I want to see space!” Luke complained as Zelina crouched down in front of him.  Beru and Owen stood waiting by the bay doors, watching the exchange and waiting for Luke to come to them after he was done saying goodbye.

Zelina smiled slightly, ruffling his hair affectionately.  “Because, Little Dragon, this might be dangerous, and it will be a quick trip anyway.  Plus, you have school, and Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen need your help on the farm. I’ll be back before you know it, I promise.”

“Do you promise you’ll be back soon?”  Luke asked with a sniffle.

Zelina pulled the young man into her arms, giving him a tight hug and cradling his head in her shoulder, hand on the back of his head.  “I promise, Luke,” she said softly, giving him a gentle kiss on the head. After a few more minutes holding him in her embrace, she pulled away, holding him by the arms again.  “All right. Now go to your Aunt and Uncle. Behave, do what they tell you. I’ll be back in a few days, okay?”

“Okay, Mother,” he said glumly, nodding his head.  “I love you.”

Zelina felt her throat close at the proclamation, tears burning her eyes.  “I love you too, Little Dragon. Now go on. Go on,” she assured him, giving him a gentle push in the direction of his Aunt and Uncle.

Luke raced over to Beru and Owen, though he was still clearly unhappy with the whole arrangement.  With every moment that passed, Zelina was finding the impending separation harder and harder--she hadn’t realized just how attached to the boy she’d become.

How could she not get attached?  He was all she had left.

“You ready?” she heard Solo call from inside the  _ Falcon _ .  That was her sign that she had to take her eyes off of Luke.  it was time to go.

With more effort than she cared to admit, Zelina turned around, heading up the landing ramp with heavy feet and a heavy heart.

“I’m ready, Solo,” she called back, barely managing to keep her voice steady.  She’d hardly reached the top of the ramp when it started to close behind her, and she quickly headed over to the seating in the main chamber of the ship.  As she sat down, she heard the ramp seal, and a sudden anxiety at the separation between herself and Luke swept over her.

What if something happened while she was gone?  What if he needed her? What if the Empire managed to trace that call and they came to Tatooine?  What if some of the criminal elements on Tatooine decided to strike where it would hurt her the most while she was gone?  What was she doing, leaving Luke behind without her protection?

_ Stop that _ , she told herself fiercely, even as her heart suddenly throbbed from the separation.   _ Stop that right now.  You know why you’re leaving, and Luke will be just fine without you for a few days.  He’ll be safe and looked after. You even have Ameenah keeping an eye on him while you’re gone--he’s in good, trusted hands. _

That didn’t make it any easier.  It was still painful, and Zelina did her best to ignore the obvious--she’d grown extremely attached to the youth, dangerous, paranoid level.  She needed to relax her grip so she wasn’t white knuckling a leash she was keeping on him. He was his own person, he was going to get older, and just like she’d told Anakin years ago, you couldn’t control everything--bad things were going to happen to the people you cared about one way or another.

But she could still do her hardest to protect Luke from as much as she could.

He still needed to have his own experiences, and as he got older, Zelina was going to have to accept letting him out of her sight more so he could grow outside of her.

_ That doesn’t mean I have to like being so far away from him. _

Maybe when he got older and was more capable of handling himself, this kind of separation induced panic would ease.  Maybe. Hopefully. Right now he was just a kid.

_ Don’t think about this right now.  You’re about to go find lightsaber crystals, and you know what that means.  You need to be spending this time clearing your head before you go looking for the crystals. _

Closing her eyes as she felt the  _ Falcon _ lifting off to head towards the atmosphere, Zelina did her best to shift her focus from Luke to her breathing, running through whatever meditation routine happened to come to mind to try and calm down.

She still kept Luke in the back of her mind, the image of him standing in the landing bay looking up at the departing ship her incentive to make it back in one piece if there was trouble waiting for her on Christophsis.

* * *

“I don’t see why you came all this way for...what was it?  Christophsis crystal shelves? Or why you insist on being dropped off in the middle of nowhere now.”

Zelina hummed in response to Han’s complaint, only giving it half her attention, the rest focused on the navi computer to see where they were.  “What can I say, they’re sturdy and they look good. I figured they’d be a nice addition to the cantina. And I want to see the scenery.”

She could feel Han’s gaze narrow at her suspiciously.  “These are pretty specific coordinates for sightseeing.”

“I know a spot.  I was here once, a long time ago.  I want to see if it’s still here.” Zelina straightened as she saw they’d reached their destination, already turning to leave.  “Just drop me off here. I’ll call you on the comms when I’m ready to be picked up, between now and then, I don’t mind what you do so long as it doesn’t cause us to have to make a speedy exit.”

“Whatever, you’re the client,” Han muttered.  Zelina felt both his eyes and Chewbacca’s eyes on her as she left the cockpit, heading over to the landing ramp.

It was already lowering by the time she reached it, the Falcon hovering over the spot Obi-Wan had told her about.  Below her she could see a forest of crystals, most of it clustered in a way that it obscured the ground below. She made her way down the landing ramp, holding onto the floor of the ship’s interior to stay grounded as Han shifted she ship so she was over a clear patch.

That was her cue.

Letting go of the  _ Falcon _ and pushing off, Zelina dropped down into the crystalline forest below, landing feet first and folding into a crouch as she hit the ground with the same nimbleness that she’d used in the war, hands planted on the crystalline ground below.  She straightened and turned around so she could wave at the  _ Falcon _ to let Han know they could leave, remaining standing in place until the  _ Falcon _ had disappeared from view.

Which meant she was now alone, free to find the kyber crystals Obi-Wan had mentioned, and to see if any of them called to her.  If not...she’d be leaving empty handed.

Brushing her hands on her pants on instinct, Zelina surveyed the forest around her, trying not to be blinded by the glare coming off of the crystals.  She’d forgotten how beautiful this planet was. Then again, last time she’d been here, it had been war ravaged.

Slowly, Zelina got down onto her knees, resting her hands on her thighs and letting out a slow breath, allowing her senses to open up fully to the Force, as she did when she trained on Tatooine.

The Force had been different ever since the rise of the Empire.  Drastically different, and dark. On Tatooine she’d had the extra light of Luke’s presence to help stave off that difference and bring some of the familiar comfort back.  Now, she was all alone on this planet, in the midst of the dark galaxy, and it made her experience the Force the way any other lone Jedi surviving in the galaxy must have felt it.

There was still the familiarity that she’d always felt when touching the Force, but only because she’d had time to adjust to the change.  At first, its answer had been sluggish, its presence strange, and darkness seemed to whisper along the edge of light wherever she went, no matter what part she felt.  If she turned inward instead of outwards, however, she could find the peaceful aura she yearned for before trying to venture out into the darkened galaxy with her Force senses.

Slowly, Zelina calmed herself into a deep meditation, making sure she found her inner peace and was truly in tune with all of her senses.  Once she felt the Force flowing strong and steady through every part of her, Zelina gave herself up to the Force’s whims, stretching out to see where it wanted her to go.

Keeping her eyes closed, Zelina rose to her feet and simply started to walk, letting the Force guide her steps rather than her sight.  Though she was trusting the Force at the moment, she still held a hand out just to make sure she didn’t run into any crystal pillars.

She walked blindly for what felt like an hour, hand outstretched to keep her path clear, letting the Force guide her forward.  Suddenly, her hand touched smooth crystal slanted downwards, and the Force would guide her no further.

Opening her eyes, she found herself standing in front of a crystalline formation.  Slabs of crystal rested at the bottom of what only could be described as a mountain, as if there had been a rock slide--or was it a crystal slide considering the entire planet was crystal?

Zelina looked up the length of the mountain, wondering if the crystal she was seeking would be found up above, somewhere in the cliffs of the mountainside.  She stretched out a hand to start her climb...and stopped. No...no, it wasn’t up above. If she closed her eyes and focused, trying to center on where exactly the Force was trying to lead her...what she sought was below her.  But how was she supposed to get down there?

Siphoning off the frustration she felt tug at her, she turned her attention back to the base of the mountain, focusing more on the piled crystal formations she had been drawn to in the first place.  Perhaps what she needed--her way down--was over here.

Looking down at the base she found nothing, and feeling around the rock gave her no telling chills down her spine or revealed any abnormality in the crystal.  There was no seam on the sides, and until she knew what she was doing and where she was going, she didn’t want to start moving slabs.

Her hand trailed farther up, and she hesitated, looking at the peculiar placing of the fallen crystals, and the top edge of the slab in front of her.  Maybe...maybe she just needed to go a little higher, before she could head down.

With that thought in mind, Zelina began looking for a foothold to climb the crystal slabs again, except this time she didn’t have the intention to start scaling the entire mountain looking for kyber crystals.

So the Force didn’t give her a prompt to stop her, which also told her she was on the right track.

Finding a foothold was tricky, considering the smooth surface of the crystals, but she managed to boost herself up using some smaller chunks of fallen crystal and grabbing onto the edges of the slabs, climbing her way up to the top edge of the slab the Force had led her to.  She hefted herself up onto the edge, sitting down and using her new vantage point to look for a path she couldn’t see from the ground.

There was one.  Slim and perfectly hidden from aerial or ground observation, and practically impossible to see unless you were right on top of it, there was a gap between the crumbled crystal slabs, a gap that if she tried hard enough, she could slip through without showing any rock disturbance that might lead a well-trained tracker to this site.  Which meant perhaps this spot could remain hidden from the Empire a little longer.

Sucking in a deep breath and holding in in an effort to make herself slimmer, Zelina carefully started to shimmy and lower herself through the crack with great effort, the stray thought crossing her mind that there was no way Obi-Wan had shimmied his way down here.

Until she remembered he had a very slim and nimble daughter that would definitely fit through a space like this.  Perhaps it had actually been Pria that had found this spot.

Shaking the stray thoughts away once more, Zelina found herself clinging to the outside edge with feet suspended in the air in a place that was shrouded in pitch darkness.  Sucking in a breath, Zelina forced herself to let go, trusting she wasn’t about to impale herself right inside this opening to...well, she wasn’t entirely sure what she’d found yet.

Reaching to her belt, Zelina unhooked the glowrod she’d brought with her--she hadn’t expected to wind up in a cave, but had brought it in case she ended up searching into the night.  Holding it high above her head, she activated the device, bathing the small chamber she’d found herself inside in light.

In front of her stretched a tunnel that seemed to slope sharply downwards, descending further below ground and beneath the mountain, the walls shimmering as the light bounced off of the crystalline surface.  There was nowhere else to go but down, so Zelina didn’t need the Force to tell her this was the way.

Keeping the glowrod held high, Zelina cautiously started to make her way down the slope, having to duck her head from the small height of the tunnel and taking great care to watch her steps considering even the ground was crystalline, and therefore smooth and slick in surface.  The glowrod cast its light a decent way in front of her, allowing her to see the terrain and find the best footholds even on the steepest parts of her descent. It also allowed her to notice that the further down she seemed to go, the rougher the terrain became, and the more jagged and rough the crystal structures became, some of the crystals losing their shine with the dirt and humid air that came with the underground chamber, causing a corrosion to grow over parts of the crystals.

None of the crystals she passed sang out to her through the Force, or even appeared to be kyber crystals, so she kept moving.

After a disturbingly long and cautious trip downwards, Zelina suddenly felt a tingle of warning go down her spine, but before she could assess her surroundings to see what could possibly cause the warning, her foot slipped on a surprisingly wet spot of rock.  Her hands instantly shot out in an effort to stop a suddenly steep a fast descent, feet skidding across the slick surface for purchase as her hand grasped for something to hold onto. a much stronger prompting zipped through her, and Zelina instinctively obeyed it, hands just barely managing to find a place for them to stick and suddenly stop her descent, one foot finding a solid surface while the other dangled partially submerged in...water?

Now that she’d finished sliding, Zelina readjusted her grip on the glowrod that had miraculously stayed in her hand during the slide, angling it down so she could see what her one foot was submerged in.

It was water, all right, and while normally she wouldn’t see why that was dangerous, unless it was somehow poisonous or acidic, the light also revealed that she’d reached a mineral rich part of this underground cave, one that had been untouched by nature and had clearly grown without a care for living organisms.

Below the surface of the water and along the rim of the mostly shallow pool were thousands of crystalline stalagmites, stretching up to but not quite breaking the surface of the half meter high water, as well as pointing inwards along the rim of the pool and another half meter out of the water.  They were like thousands of decently sized crystalline lances, and Zelina was rather sure that, pretty as the sight was when it was undisturbed, they would have easily punctured thousands of little holes in her if she’d happened to slide into the pool.

“Okay...okay,” Zelina murmured, shifting the glowrod in her hand once more in an attempt to take in her surroundings and try and find another way across the pointy pool.

If Pria had found kyber crystals down here, then she had to have found a way across.  It looked like the needles were only around the pool of water, so she just had to cross the pool and then she’d be back into a relatively normal cave.

Relatively normal since across the pool she could see crystals protruding from all sides of the cave, including the ground, and they seemed to be increasing in size the further down it went.

_ Climb.  That’s the obvious answer, _ a little voice in her head said, and Zelina looked around for a good handhold.  The cave was no longer made of the smooth crystal seen everywhere on Christophsis’s surface, but was now jagged, rough, natural, and perfect for climbing.  Pulling her foot out of the pool, Zelina braced both feet on either sides of the narrow tunnel wall, braced with her free hand, and moved the glowrod to her mouth to free her other hand for climbing.  Once all four limbs were free and ready, she sought out her first good handhold, swinging around so her stomach was brushing against the cave wall with her back to the pool.

Now she just had to climb along the side of the wall without getting low enough to land on the needle like crystals until she reached the other side.

It was a fairly easy task, thanks to the fact she hadn’t slacked all these years exiled on Tatooine, but had taken care of herself in every sense of the word.  She slipped a few times due to the crystalline features of the wall and the sometimes water-slicked spots, but she managed to make it safely to the other side with only a few scraped knuckles from the rough walls.  Once her feet were solidly on a safe surface, she breathed a sigh of relief, allowing herself a moment to cast the glowrod’s light back over the pool and admire the beauty of the thousands of sharp crystals beneath the clear groundwater now that she wasn’t in danger of impaling herself on them.

But she had further to go, and she didn’t know how long she’d already been down here, or how much longer she had to remain in order to find her crystals.  So she tore her gaze from the pretty sight, and returned it to the new small tunnel that now had crystals protruding from the walls in clusters. Zelina carefully walked around them, ducking and weaving where she needed to as the ground continued to slope downwards, her free hand trailing along the crystal surfaces half in admiration and half to steady herself.

Gradually the crystals grew bigger, and the tunnel grew larger, and far more crowded with the crystals, until she was climbing over large crystal beams and making weird backwards leans to avoid crystals sticking out of the ceiling.  Finally, she turned a corner and found herself face to face with a maze of giant crystal beams and protrusions.

“Chaos take me…” she murmured, staring at the giant crystals that towered around her and pierced right through the center of the cave from all angles.

She hesitated a moment, unsure that she would manage to find her way through this maze until she felt prompted to keep going.

Which meant she was supposed to keep going.

“Alright...you’re the boss...but I better not get stuck,” she muttered, wondering if all these acrobats were the challenges she needed to pass in order to get her crystal.

She doubted that, considering she’d done this before and knew how dangerous and complex these tests could actually be.  Anakin had to fight a vision of Maul, from what he’d told her when they were younger.

_ Focus _ , she chided herself once again, partially ashamed with how terrible her focus seemed to have become over the years as she shuffled forward and found a beam she wanted to try climbing around.

This climb was a lot more difficult, with Zelina slipping more often then she cared to admit, and several falls resulting in a bruised behind, and even a few times where she very nearly got stuck between two crystals or more trying to shimmy through spaces too small--or almost too small, since she managed to make it through a few of those spaces.  Each moment she got stuck was met with the brief, heart-pounding fear that she would be stuck forever and unable to return to Luke before she managed to wiggle herself free and continue--after calming herself down once more, of course.

After passing the slippery, naturally constructed puzzle of large tunnels that went on far too long--and she was partially wondering how she was supposed to climb back up--Zelina finally slipped past one last gap between crystals, dropping down onto a corroded crystalline floor and into a cavern more spacious than the Room of a Thousand Fountains at the old Jedi Temple.

As well as, dare she say it, more beautiful.

Slowly, Zelina moved over to a nearby stalagmite formation, wedging her glowrod inside so that it cast its light into the room and freed her hands as she walked forward in a partial daze, amazed by the sight that met her.

Crystalline stalactites hung from the ceiling in various shades of blue, reflecting the glowrod’s light and casting it further into the cavern.  The ground had stalagmites of equal beauty clustered throughout the surface, but through most of the vast cavern was a perfectly clear pool of undisturbed water, stretching almost as far as the cave itself with some crystalline slab shores, such as where Zelina currently stood.  She wasn’t sure how deep the water went, thanks to the reflective quality heightened by the purity of the water and the crystal ground. And she didn’t see another exit anywhere else in the cavern...so this had to be as far as she went.

So where were the kyber crystals?

_ Zelina… _

A chill went down her spine at the whisper, so quiet it had to come from within her very mind.  Her senses prickled to high alert, causing her to realize this cave far below the surface of Christophsis seemed to be steeped in the Force.  That heightening in her senses also made her realized something in the room was calling to her--perhaps literally.

Focusing on the call, Zelina realized that whatever had led her this deep underground was centered somewhere in the middle of the vast pool of water.

She was going swimming, then.

Pulling her lightsaber from her boot to leave on the shore, as well as any other electronics, and stripping down to the bare minimum so most of her clothes could remain dry, Zelina stepped barefoot into the crystalline pool--hesitantly at first, to test and see if the waters were harmful in any way.  When she wasn’t met with instant pain or discomfort that hinted the waters weren’t welcoming, she continued forward, eyeing the level of the water as it grew past her knee...up to her waist...chest…

Soon she was swimming through water that easily went past her head in depth, mindful of the underwater stalagmites as she navigated through the water.  Her task was getting more difficult as she strayed farther and farther from the reach of the glowrod’s light, the waters growing dark except for the shine and sparkle of crystals underwater.

“ _ Zelina _ …”

And the voice grew louder...as well as clearer.

“Zelina.”

Not to mention...familiar.

And yet she couldn’t  _ see  _ anything.  All there was around her was the silence of the cave, the water, and the crystals.

Something pulled her downwards.  Not in the scary grabbed by the ankle and suddenly submerged kind of way, but in the Force her senses were guiding her down.

She needed to dive for her crystals.

Taking a deep breath--holding her breath underwater had never been her strong suit considering she came from a desert planet, so she needed all the air she could get--Zelina allowed herself to sink below the surface, opening her eyes so she could try and find the source of the call.  Something glimmered brightly below her, far brighter than the other crystals around her, so she swam downwards, hand outstretched towards a stalagmite formation on the crystalline floor of the pool.

Darkness suddenly encroached on her vision, but not from a lack of air.

“Zelina!”

No, no, no, now was not the time to be having a vision!  Couldn’t the Force have given her a vision when she was safe on the shore, not holding her breath far underwater?

As the bright light she’d been reaching for disappeared with the last of her vision, Zelina felt something grab her shoulder and yank her back.  She had the sense of falling through a veil, or perhaps a waterfall, as suddenly she landed hard on her back on dry ground, soaking wet, no water around her.  Zelina coughed, eyes flying open to try and see what was happening, but it was too dark to see her surroundings.

“It’s about time you and I had a talk.”

A lightsaber suddenly ignited, and a blue glow illuminated the small cave she’d somehow entered.  Holding the lightsaber was…

Zelina slowly got to her feet, a thousand emotions, each as sharp and painful as the last, lanced through her.  Mostly pain, longing, loss,  _ love _ lost.

“Vision...this is a vision.  There’s no way you can be here, you d...you're dead,” Zelina said haltingly, instinctively backing away from the image that could hurt her so deeply.

Anakin stepped forward, lightsaber moving out beside him so it wasn’t between them.  “Vision or not, you’re still going to listen,” he said, much harsher than she’d expected to hear.  This was not about to be a roll in a meadow kind of vision--it was going to be brutal and jarring.

“All those years you claimed to be on my side, to be my closest friend, to  _ love _ me.  Yet...where were you when I needed you the most?”

Zelina pushed herself up into a kneeling position, shaking her head as if to clear it of a fog.  “You’re not Anakin...I don’t owe you anything,” she murmured.

“Oh, I think you do,” the not-Anakin said, roughly pushing her back down to the ground as he approached.

Definitely not Anakin.  Even on the dark side he’d respected her more than this.

“You said you would always be there for me.  Well, I needed you--where were you? Not there, that’s for sure.  Some friend. You left me to rot, you fell through every time. Not  _ one  _ of your promises to me were kept.”  Anakin made a sound of disgust as he loomed over her, and with no warning he suddenly picked her up and pinned her against the wall.  “You promised you’d protect my family. You promised me Padme would live, but she’s dead. You were there and you did  _ nothing _ .  My children were orphaned and split up.  Not to mention all those promises about me and my own well being.  Together to the very end no matter what?  _ You left me behind _ .  Do you even know what  _ happened  _ to me?”

“I don’t,” she admitted mournfully, hands gripping at the ones that held her pinned to the wall.  “All I know is that you were in pain, so much pain...and then you were gone. You were dead. And I’ll never know how.  I tried, I tried so hard to keep us all together, to keep you with me, but I wasn’t strong enough, I…”

“You what?  You loved me?  All the good that did me,” Anakin snapped back, throwing her back to the ground.  She hit the floor with a yelp, curling into herself and trying to ignore the sharp words he was sending her way.  “I wasn't in love with you, if that’s what you’d hoped. You disgusted me in the end. A sniveling failure is what you turned out to be, who couldn't keep any of the promises you made me.  And you lie and act tough now that I’m gone, but just look at you: you're still that same, sniveling failure now, but worse, because now you don’t have me.”

Zelina ground her teeth together at the accusation, his claim that she was nothing without him cutting her to the bone.  Because right after she’d lost him, it had been true, and she’d fought so hard to piece herself back together over the years.  She wouldn’t have even done that, if it hadn’t been for one person still alive in the galaxy.

Slowly, she pushed herself back to her feet, tears stinging her eyes as she looked at the mirage of Anakin.  “You’re right. I failed you in every possible way, and I'll never forgive myself...not really,” she said sadly to the mirage of Anakin.  A rush of defiant anger surged into her veins, filled with an instinctual emotion she couldn’t even put a name to that had everything to do with the one person she was still kicking around in the galaxy for.  She held up a finger, pointing it in no real direction, but meaning to point back towards Tatooine. “But there's one thing I haven't failed you in. And it's a little boy, waiting for me back  _ home _ , on Tatooine.  A boy who loves me like a  _ mother _ .  A boy I've come to  _ love _ as a  _ son _ .  And I'll be  _ damned _ if I fail him, too.  If not for you...Then for him.”

A replicant of Anakin’s flickering anger appeared in his eyes, a wounded expression crossing his face.  “You've already forgotten me.”

As out of nowhere as this new accusation was, it still stung.  Now the tears spilled over, Zelina’s hands twining into her hair for a few seconds in exasperation and pain before she dropped them.  “I can’t keep living in the past, Anakin! Its gonna destroy me if I do. But I will never... _ never _ stop loving you.  There's a hole where you used to be... and it’s  _ never  _ going to be filled.”  The old ache for Anakin filled her chest, reminding her that even with Luke, the space where Anakin had once been remained hollow and unfilled.  Warmed by Luke’s presence, yes...but never filled. Her gaze centered on the fake Anakin, all the more pained to see him standing in front of her and know it wasn’t really him, that this was going to be the closest she ever came to seeing him again.  “I love you. I always loved you, I  _ still  _ love you.  And the fact that I can never see you again, never touch or hear you, I just…”

Anakin had stepped closer like he was going to say something else, and Zelina reached out with her hands, clutching at the fabric of his tunic in desperation, the detail of the vision--or perhaps her own memory--so precise she could feel the fabric beneath her fingers, exactly as it should have felt.  And he was warm, too, as if he was still alive.

In the moment she touched him, she felt that space in her heart fill again, for the briefest of moments, as if he’d never left.  Suddenly, the defiant anger rushed out of her, and she didn’t want the vision to end, no matter how cruel it had been. Because for a few moments, she was whole, and in a way, he was here with her.

With a sob, she pulled herself close to him, clutching desperately to keep him with her so he could soothe the old pain, a thousand things left unsaid and desperate to be voiced bubbling up inside her, unable to all come out at once and, as a result, coming out in mournful cries.

As suddenly as he appeared, Anakin seemed to bleed away from her grasp.  Her sobs turned to watery coughs, and instead of being planted in Anakin’s chest, her face seemed to be pressed into the ground.  Her hands were curled into fists...but they weren’t empty.

Coughing up water and wondering for a few moments how she’d gone from submerged in the middle of the pool to lying on stepped crystal slabs above water, Zelina pushed herself up onto her elbows, looking around to realize she was on the same shore as the entrance, feet away from the glowrod she’d planted in the stalagmite cluster.

Looking back down, she slowly opened her hands...revealing the bright glow of not one, but two kyber crystals.

* * *

“Can I see, Can I see?”

Luke bounced excitedly around Zelina in their home’s living room, nearly climbing on top of her as he pleaded with her to show him what she’d been vigilantly working on ever since she’d returned from Christophsis.

Zelina smiled, keeping what he wanted so desperately to see just out of sight.  “I will, but first you have to settle down. I don’t want you to accidentally slice off a finger or a hand because you’re jumping all over the place.”

With great effort, Luke came to a squirming stop sitting right in front of her.  He really needed to work on that patience part of his training, considering he was proving to be every bit as impatient as his father...

Once Zelina was sure he’d finished squirming, she brought out her two lightsabers, holding them just out of Luke’s reach so he could appreciate them, but ideally wouldn’t be tempted to try and touch.  She allowed him a few minutes to study the hilts in awe before she pulled back and stood up, moving away from Luke so he was out of harm’s way.

“Ready?” Zelina asked, thumbing the activation on both without pressing the button...yet.

“Definitely!” Luke chimed excitedly, already starting to bounce in place again.

Once he’d confirmed he was ready, Zelina activated both blades, watching them spring to life and bathe the room in their two new colors.

One, her original that she’d built as a Padawan, was now a deep, rich violet, much darker than her original blade.  The other, her newly constructed one, was a vibrant cyan blade, the one that would be acting as her secondary in place of what had once been her Master’s blade.  When she’d gone into the cave on Christophsis, she’d only expected to come out with one crystal, considering she already had a lightsaber. Looking back, however, she realized that she had changed drastically from the idealistic girl who’d constructed that first blade.  It made sense fr another crystal to call out to her, even if it had surprised her at first.

“Whoa,” Luke breathed, the word drawn out as he drew closer to the blade, taking care not to touch--Zelina was still training him with sticks, after all, since he was brand new to the training process.  “How did you find the crystals? I thought they were rare because the Empire took them all?”

So he was paying attention.  Good.

Zelina deactivated the blades, hooking the hilts onto her belt for the time being as she crouched down in front of him.  “One day, when you’re older and it’s time for you to make your own lightsaber, I’ll tell you. Deal?”

Luke nodded eagerly.  “Deal,” he promised.

Zelina smiled gently at him, pulling him into a tight hug.  “C’mere,” she mumbled as she pulled Luke close, feeling the child’s arms wrap around her in a return hug.  She closed her eyes, holding on perhaps a little tighter than necessary. “I missed you so much.”

“You’ve said that every day since you got back,” Luke replied, voice muffled by the hug.

Zelina had to stifle a laugh at how close to a complaint his statement sounded.  That was probably her sign to stop saying it, then. She pulled away, ruffling Luke’s hair affectionately.  “That means I really, really missed you, Little Dragon.”

“I missed you too, Mother,” he admitted with a tinge of pink in his cheeks.

“How about you go get the training sticks, and we’ll go practice lightsaber forms out in the canyon.  Sound like a plan?” Zelina asked conspiratorially. Luke almost nailed her in the nose with his head as he suddenly leapt up in excitement.

“Yeah!” he crowed, already scrambling to go find the sturdy sticks.  Zelina chuckled softly, rising to her feet and watching him scamper off.

“You’d be proud of him, Ani,” she murmured into the silence.  “He’s turning into a fine young man.”

Feeling a sneaky tear slip down her cheek, Zelina quickly wiped away the tear so that if Luke returned suddenly, he wouldn’t find her crying in the living room for no clear reason.

If there was one thing she’d learned in that cave...she needed to put her failure regarding Anakin in the past, and focus all her efforts on helping Luke grow.  The pain was still there, and it would always be there, but she needed to learn to live with and in spite of it. There was nothing she could do to fix what happened to Anakin, but she could still do right by Luke.

As Shmi had once said…

_ Be brave, and don’t look back. _


	6. Off Limits Beyond This Point

**_(11 Years After the Rise of the Empire)_ **

Luke squirmed in his seat in one of the more secluded corners of the cantina his mother owned, bent over the table as he reached for the datachip that had skidded to the opposite side when he dumped his studies bag on the table.  Once he finally got his hands on the chip, he plugged it in and eagerly settled down for some reading about piloting and recent ship models.

He’d love to do some reading of his Jedi studies, but his mother didn’t want him reading any of his Jedi stuff in public in case someone happened to see, so these days where Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru couldn’t pick him up from school and his mother had a longer shift at the cantina gave him the perfect opportunity to catch up on piloting.

The cantina was loud and bustling with activity, but he’d grown accustomed to it by now, able to block out the sound and focus on what he was doing.  His mother had been bringing him here before she owned the cantina, though back then she wouldn’t let him linger long on the floor, mostly keeping him hidden away in the back.  She’d finally allowed him to sit in an actual booth instead of crammed in a corner in the busy back room a little while after she inherited the cantina, her reason being something along the lines of she’d had time to lay down rules and get people used to following them.

He didn’t know how.  Even he had been able to hear some of the ugly fights that broke out from the back before his mother owned the cantina.

There was a roar of sound from one of the gambling tables, and Luke looked up just long enough to see Han Solo putting on a show as he raked in the pot he’d just won in a game of sabaac.  One of the other gamblers at the table looked like he was ready to fight Han over it, and something—perhaps a prompting from the Force—was telling Luke that a fight was _definitely_ about to break out.

The gambler Luke had been looking at did in fact lunge across the table at Han, who immediately responded—in a more defensive manner, though.  Within moments Ameenah was there to throw the offender off Han, promptly picking the sprawled Rodian back up and carrying him out the door while Luke’s mother swooped in from where she’d been bringing a table’s drinks to make sure Han was in one piece.

As the fight was being swiftly dealt with, a shadow suddenly loomed over Luke in his already darker lit area (due to his mother’s discomfort with the idea of ‘shining a spotlight on him’ in a Tatooine cantina known to attract the lowest of criminal elements).  Luke only had enough time to look up and register that it was a human man that seemed to tower over him with a mess of black hair and shadowy beginnings of a beard before the man grabbed Luke by the arm and hoisted him out of the booth he’d been sitting in.  Luke was about to let out a shout of protest before a slim and blunt cylinder was pressed just below his ribcage hard enough to make him flinch back, though he was held in place by the man.  Luke immediately sucked in a breath, terror slipping down his spine like a damp slime as he realized it was a blaster muzzle the man was pressing into him.

“Not a sound, boy,” the man said when Luke looked up at him with wide eyes.  A slimmer, slightly shorter man appeared around the corner, making an impatient motion with his hands as if to encourage the one holding Luke to hurry.

“The owner isn’t very kind to the slave business—if she catches us, it won’t be pretty,” the shorter one hissed as Luke was yanked forward away from the table and towards the back exit of the cantina.

_Slave business!_

Panic snapped through Luke like a krayt dragon’s bite, making him dig in his heels as much as he could as he tried to resist being dragged out of his mother’s cantina, though the man was much larger and stronger than Luke, making the gesture futile.  Though he wanted to scream and shout for his mother, he kept silent, painfully aware of the blaster that could kill him in a moment.  He wanted to use the Force to try and slip away, but his mother’s warnings about what could happen if someone saw him use the Force and the fact he was in a crowded cantina was stronger than that urge.

But he still screamed inwardly in a primal cry for help that was made more of feeling than words, with _everything_ he had.

The short one grabbed Luke by the chin, tilting Luke’s head around like he was examining an eopie.  “He is a fine stock—probably will be worth the trouble if he’s worth as much as you say that woman will pay us for him.”

“She likes them young and pretty—they last longer that—” the one holding Luke said before he was suddenly yanked away from Luke with enough force that he crashed _through_ two tables and knocked over another before coming to a standstill, his blaster not even making it to the floor before it was kicked through the air to the opposite end of the cantina.

Luke staggered back and fell to the floor as the opposing force that had been keeping him from pulling away suddenly disappeared, staring in shock as he realized it had been his _mother_ who had intervened.  He watched as she instantly turned on the second, shorter man, knocking aside the man’s arm in a move his mother had taught Luke on day one of his self-defense lessons, except while the blaster he’d been drawing was knocked out of his hand, her grip shifted and tightened on the arm instead of releasing, knee coming up into the man’s stomach to make him double over before her elbow came down hard on the arm she was holding stretched out, making it snap and bend at an unnatural angle before she twisted that same arm behind and up into the man’s back and pushed him up against the wall.  The tall one had recovered, and was charging at his mother from behind with a broken shard of glass in hand.

“ _Mother_!”

His mother grabbed the short one by the hair, pulling his head back and smashing it hard against the wall, pressing and shoving down with enough force to leave a streak of red on the wall, letting the short one drop to the ground as she whipped around to face the second, taking one step back and coiling into a ready position.  As the tall one came at her in a low charge, she hooked her arm around the arm of the hand holding the glass, her other free hand finding a place on the back of his neck to stop him before it slid around his chest, the leg closest to him coming inside so she could flip him over onto his back.  Her hands shifted so the one that had been hooked around his arm moved to grab under his chin and push his head back to expose his neck, her other hand sliding back to hold the man’s arm trapped while she shifted her stance so her knee kept his head pinned down into the ground.  The man tried to struggle free, but couldn’t with the way she had him pinned.  In fact, when he struggled, she pulled back with the arm that was hooked around his so that it bent unnaturally around her back as she used enough force there was another breaking sound, and the glass clattered out of his hand as the man screamed.

A mass of fur suddenly obscured Luke’s vision of the brutal fight, strong paws gripping him by the arms and picking him up as his mother snapped out a sharp command.

“ _Get him out_!”

The sounds of the fight continued, complete with screams and blaster shots, but Ameenah kept herself firmly between the fight and Luke’s field of vision as she quickly brought him out the back, refusing to let him go even after they had left the cantina and the fight behind.

* * *

**_(Zelina’s POV)_ **

As Ameenah carried Luke out of the cantina and out of harms way, the second kidnapper actually managed to get back up…partially.  Enough that he was making a desperate lunge towards his discarded blaster she hadn’t used the Force to precisely kick far from Luke like she had with the blaster of the man she currently had pinned to the ground.

Pressing the head of the man she was currently on top of harder into the ground with her knee, Zelina quickly shifted her grip on his broken arm so she was holding it trapped with one of her arms hooked around the broken limb to hold it against her chest and free her other hand.  She pulled her work blaster from it’s usual hiding place in a shoulder holster under her thin second layer, taking aim and shooting both hands of the one crawling for his discarded blaster to discourage him from reaching for it.

Finally, the fight came to a halt.

Zelina got to her feet, hauling the man who’d been holding a blaster on Luke with her, before she slammed him into the nearest table that was still intact and upright, pressing his face into the table while twisting his broken arm up into his back and holding her blaster muzzle at his cheek.

Rage was too mild a word for the emotion pumping through her veins at the moment.

“Did you really think it would be that easy to smuggle _my boy_ out of _my cantina_?  I can’t believe you had the _audacity_ to think I’d let anyone snatch my boy up to be sold as a _slave_!” she spat, blaster digging deeper into the man’s cheek.  “The only reason you’re still alive is so I can make an example of you.”

Zelina cast a dark glare around the cantina, the only sound in the establishment the whimpers of the man on the floor behind her.  “If _anyone_ lays a _finger_ on that boy, they’ll have to answer to _me_.”

In order to make sure everyone understood her perfectly, Zelina dropped her blaster so it was aimed at the man’s gut and fired, letting him drop to the ground before she turned and shot the other man in the same spot.  Considering she had no intention on letting either of them receive medical attention, it was going to be a very slow and grotesque death, and everyone who knew anything about blaster wounds knew that.

It wasn’t a mess she was going to want to clean up, either, so she’d probably have to get Ameenah to bring these two out back…after she took care of Luke.

“You better make it well known, because I will not be repeating myself,” Zelina finished, letting her gaze roam the cantina before she holstered her blaster, stepping over the now-dying men on her way to the bar where Benon was, Eny already rushing past her to try and clean up the part of the mess that didn’t include dragging the two men out back.

“Keep an eye on things, I’ll send Ameenah in to bring them out back.  I’m going to cut my shift short and take Luke home,” she said, tone clipped as the cantina slowly started to go back to business as usual.  Benon nodded, a cautious look on his face that Zelina purposely ignored as she stalked to the back room.

She paused before she left the cantina in its entirety, sensing Luke’s still-scared presence on the other side of the door.  With hand hovering over the panel to open the back door, Zelina took several long, slow breaths, trying to calm herself back down and shove the darkness that had reared its head inside her back down.  She forced herself not to think about what had just happened, to focus instead on happier, lighter thoughts.  Thoughts of quiet, peaceful times with Anakin, of Anakin holding her when she was scared or upset, of quiet moments with Luke, of the pride she felt when she taught him, of the kindness and light she saw inside the boy…

When her anger was once more a simmer in the back of her mind and the adrenaline had left her system, Zelina finally opened the door, carefully stepping outside as she made sure that she did have a handle on her darker emotions once again.

“Mother!” Luke cried out again when he saw her, and Zelina looked off to her right to see Ameenah standing just behind Luke, who was rushing over to Zelina’s side.  She dropped to one knee as the boy ran towards her, surprised when he stopped just short of being within her arm’s reach.  She could sense a hint of fear rolling off of him, fear that was directed towards her and what had happened inside.

She’d scared him with her reaction.  The realization cut, and she felt a flash of shame rush through her.  She’d never intended to let that side of her come out around him, not while he was still so young at the very least.  She wouldn’t apologize for protecting him so fiercely…but this fear he looked at her with for her dark reaction would haunt her for years to come.

She needed to show him it was all right, that she was still herself.

“Th-they tried to take me, they w-were talking about a-a w-woman who’d b-buy me, and—”

Zelina’s blood started to boil once again as Luke’s shaking voice recited the intent of the two men, and she had to fight to keep the image of the short one looking Luke over like he was stock to be examined out of her mind.  Doing her best to ignore the anger and keep it restrained, especially since the two had already been dealt with, Zelina scooted close enough to put her hands on Luke’s arms, gently rubbing his arms to try and reassure him.

“I know, Little Dragon, I know, but it’s over now, okay?  They’re never going to threaten you again—no one will.  You’re safe as long as I’m here,” she told him in a soothing voice, holding his gaze.  He was still shaking underneath her grip, and she gently pulled him towards her so she could wrap him up in a tight hug.  Her hand threaded through his hair as Luke all but collapsed into her arms, clenching to her shirt as a few shaken sobs made it past his control—clearly he was trying to be strong, but was still shaken by the close call.

Zelina looked at Ameenah over Luke’s shoulder, gesturing with a simple pointed glance back towards the door to tell her to head back inside.  Ameenah nodded, leaving the two alone as Zelina focused all of her attention on Luke.

“I’m not going to let anything happen to you, Luke, all right?  You’re safe, it’s okay, I’m here now.  I’m here,” she murmured, rocking him in place as she felt his roiling presence slowly soothed by her calming words.

She was never going to get the sensation of Luke sending out an instinctual, terrorized scream for help directly towards her in the Force, was never going to forget the feeling or the sound that had vibrated through her being on a level only a Force Sensitive could understand, was never going to forget the protectiveness that had ripped through her and the fear as the threat of slavery suddenly latched onto Luke.

She meant what she said.  She would never let anything happen to Anakin’s son, not if there was anything she could about it.

And woe was the person who tried to stop her.


	7. Fight Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m sorry ahead of time—this one has a lot of POV switching. But its essential to this piece. Just know when there’s a line break, its jumping back to the other setting. At least I’m only jumping between two events, that way its not terribly confusing. Scenes like this would be much easier to do in video format *sigh*

**_(24 BBY, Five Years Before the Rise of the Empire)_ **

“Arg—watch it! If this was real, you could have taken my arm off!”

“Calm down, Ani, you know me better than that—I know what I’m doing, I’m not gonna hurt you!”

“If that leaves a burn, then I’ll have evidence that says otherwise!”

Zelina chuckled, lazily twirling her lightsaber in hand as they both settled back into at-the-ready positions. Anakin was still scowling at her, but the fact that they hadn’t finished their spar made him table his disgruntlement in favor on focusing on winning the match. He wasn’t about to let her beat him, not today, anyway.

She shifted her feet, coiling slightly before she rushed Anakin once again, attempting to use one of the Djem So moves Master Du had taught her recently to catch him off guard and swiftly end the fight in her favor. To her dismay, Anakin easily sidestepped her, and the next moment she found her feet had disappeared underneath her as the world flipped upside-down.

* * *

**_(15 BBY, fifteen years after the rise of the Empire)_ **

Luke hit the ground with an audible thud, a soft grunt escaping him as his mother knocked him to the ground _yet again_ in their training session. The woman had no sense of the term “go easy on them,” but at least it meant when he made progress, it was real, earned progress that showed how much he was growing.

Of course, he couldn’t care less about all of that as he was getting repeatedly knocked into the dirt.

“It’s admirable that you want to fight honorably, Luke, it is—a Jedi should fight honorably,” Zelina was saying, standing over the still prone Luke lying on the sandy ground. “But you also need to be aware that not everyone is going to fight within your standards of fair and honorable, and you need to be ready for that. Honorable fighting alone isn’t going to do you much good against someone fighting dirty. Once they’re no longer fighting fair, you’re not held to those honorable standings either. Or at least, you should use your head and try to out-think them.”

* * *

“You’re going to have to use that head of yours and get creative if you want to beat me, Zee,” Anakin said with a smirk, staring down at a rather disgruntled Zelina before he offered her a hand.

* * *

“Let’s try it again,” Zelina told Luke, pulling the young Skywalker to his feet. “From the top, all right?”

Luke brushed some of the sand off of himself, even if it was a futile gesture, taking up his position a few paces away from Zelina once again. He let out a slow huff, lifting his father’s lightsaber in front of him with both hands, the blue blade snapping back to life. His mother remained perfectly relaxed across from him, waiting to see what he would do.

She wasn’t going to fight fair, that much was clear, now. So he was going to have to try and out-think his mother.

 _Well, this is going to be easy_ , Luke thought sarcastically.

Deciding he’d held his position long enough, Luke stepped forward, lightsaber already twitching towards a block, as his mother’s reaction to the advance was to come in for an offensive attack.

Yes, he was actually learning his mother’s fighting ticks, and he was rather proud of that fact.

As Zelina advanced with a rapid slash from above, Luke side-stepped the move, redirecting her blade by using his own to guard his left as he moved. She returned with a low sweep at his midriff, which he blocked more aggressively with a sweep of his own, the force of their respective blows causing each of them to step back from each other before Luke leapt in on the offensive again, feigning to her right before trying to get in a quick jab at her left once he turned. His mother didn’t fall for it, redirecting his momentum so he came close enough Zelina was able to push him away, Luke crouching to slow the skid before he charged again, descending on her with a swiftness that forced her to meet his blade in a brief lock.

* * *

Anakin pushed back against Zelina’s violet blade, his continued smirk giving away just how much he was enjoying this. She was too, but she was also genuinely trying to learn and improve from the experience, not just blowing off steam like Anakin seemed to be doing. At least some of his comments showed he was willing to make a teaching effort.

Not willing to let him get the upper hand yet again, Zelina was the one to disengage from their brief lock, sliding her lightsaber along his far enough towards the hilt that Anakin backed off to avoid being burned again. As he was pulling away, Zelina let loose with a sudden volley of attacks, coming at him from multiple angles as fast as she could manage. He managed to keep pace with her, his blue blade meeting her every stroke, though now he looked like he was concentrating more on the fight. Suddenly, as Zelina lunged at Anakin, he grabbed her arm, twisting the appendage just enough to get her to let go of her lightsaber while also taking a swing at her with his own that caused her to lean back awkwardly. Once he’d finished his sweep, Zelina rolled into the twist he’d put her in, managing to break free and push him away as she rolled to grab her lightsaber, gazing at him warily as she tried to calculate her next move.

Anakin wasn’t going to allow her the brief reprieve to think it over—it wasn’t like she’d get such a chance in a real fight. Instead, he advanced on her without waiting, adding a small taunt to his attack.

“Come on, Zelina, fight—”

* * *

“—me!”

Luke snatched up his lightsaber from the sandy ground and rolled away as his mother descended quickly on him without giving him the chance for a breather. He didn’t raise to her bait in her attempt to rile him up, but he did sharpen his focus as much as he could.

Today…today he was going to get somewhere. Maybe he wouldn’t beat her…but he’d best her somehow.

Completely abandoning the trust of his senses, Luke gave himself over to the Force, letting pure instinct guide him as he launched from his temporarily crouched position back into the attack. The clash of their blades was much faster, now, both of them pushing for the upper hand as Luke finally—finally—pushed his mother onto the defensive.

* * *

Blue descended on violet, pushed away as one hand grappled for the blue blade’s hilt to Force the hand aside as the violet came in at an uppercut. Blue leaned back with the body of its wielder to avoid the attack, then twisted out of the grip it was held in, coming in behind the violet wielder, trying to attack from the unguarded rear before violet appeared behind the back, pushing blue down as the user spun to come face to face with them again, followed by another rapid barrage of blue on violet, back and forth, uppercuts, slashes, sweeps, footwork cutting into one another’s dances and interrupting intricate moves. Sweat made grips harder to maintain but remained largely ignored, the force of the blows increasing with each measured strike.

* * *

Suddenly, without warning, the violet blade shut off, allowing Zelina to roll behind her taller sparring partner and whip around fast enough with a suddenly activated blade to force Anakin to pause, the tip of her blade a hair’s breath away from his gut in a finishing move.

* * *

While their blades were locked once more in a furious back and forth, Luke took the chance to catch his mother off guard, adding in a Force Push she hadn’t been braced for to send her tumbling backwards. He didn’t hesitate in following her, jumping towards her with a hard downwards blow she managed to block with her own blade. With Luke standing above Zelina for once, Zelina on her back, Luke made sure his feet were firmly planted, reaching into her defenses to grab her wrist and keep her from knocking his blade away, locking them both in place.

* * *

“That was a cheap move, it doesn’t count.”

“You told me to think outside the box—you didn’t see it coming, and I won. Deny it all you want, Ani, it’s the truth.”

* * *

“You didn’t win, per-say, you just locked us into a stalemate. A win would be an entirely different situation.”

“With you, that was a win. I didn’t think it would actually work, but it did, and I actually caught you by surprise.”

* * *

“Yeah, well, don’t let it—”

* * *

“—get to your head. You still have a lot to learn.”


End file.
